I Still Prefer MCP Over Skills

Why I believe the Model Context Protocol (MCP) is a better architectural pattern than the emerging “Skills” trend for LLM tool integration.

David Mohl

I could not agree any less with the author. I don’t want APIs, I want agents to use the same CLI tooling I already use that is locally available. If my agents are using CLI tooling anyways there is no need to add an extra layer via MCP.

I don’t want remote MCP calls, I don’t even want remote models but that’s cost prohibitive.

If I need to call an API, a skill with existing CLI tooling is more than capable.

Ok, but there are still many environments where an LLM will not have access to a CLI. In those situations, skills calling CLI tools to hook into APIs are DOA.
idk, just have a standard internet request tool that skills can describe endpoints to. like you could mock `curl` even for the same CLI feel
Now you’ve replicated MCP but with extra steps and it’s harder to debug.
skills can have code bundled with them, including MCP code
The agent still doesn’t have an execution environment. It can’t execute the code!
What are the advantages of using an environment that doesn't have access to a CLI, only having to run/maintain your own server, or pay someone else to maintain that server, so AI has access to tools? Can't you just use AI in the said server?

Obvious example is a corporate chatbot (if it's using tools, probably for internal use). Non-technical users might be accessing it from a phone or locked-down corporate device, and you probably don't want to run a CLI in a sandbox somewhere for every session, so you'd like the LLM to interface with some kind of API instead.

Although, I think MCP is not really appropriate for this either. (And frankly I don't think chatbots make for good UX, but management sure likes them.)

Why are they not calling APIs directly with strictly defined inputs and outputs like every other internal application?

The story for MCP just makes no sense, especially in an enterprise.

MCP is an API with strictly defined inputs and outputs.
This is obviously not what it is. If I give you APIGW would you be able to implement an MCP server with full functionality without a large amount of middleware?
Sorry, could you rephrase that?
Does MCP support authentication, SSO?
It supports OAuth, IIRC. But I suppose the internal chatbot itself would require auth, and pass that down to the tools it calls.
MCP really only makes sense for chatbots that don’t want to have per session runtime environments. In that context, MCP makes perfect sense. It’s just an adapter between an LLM and an API. If you have access to an execution engine, then yes CLI + skills is superior.
The advantage is that I can have it in my pocket.
gateway agent is a thing for many months now (and I don't mean openclaw, that's grown into a disaster security wise). There are good, minimal gateway agents today that can fit in your pocket.